Comedy Origin Quotes

In stand-up, there's that idea that comedy comes from a dark place, but it's not a rule.

Well, all comedy starts with anger. You get angry, and its never for a good reason, right? You know its not a good reason. And then you try and work it from there.

I have always felt that the rise of what became known as alternative comedy was born out of the loins of the alternative theatre movement.

What made me a comedian was that I wasn't really a songwriter, I was more of a poet.

We adore babies because they're so cute. And, of course, we are amused by jokes because they are funny. This is all backwards. It is. And Darwin shows us why.

I'm from Oakland and I started doing comedy around 2001.

I certainly did feel inferior. Because of class. Because of strength. Because of height. I guess if I'd been able to hit somebody in the nose, I wouldn't have been a comic.

Molly Shannon and I used to always talk about that we really felt strongly that we were comedic actors, that we weren't comedians. You just played things real and the comedy came out of the context.

I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine.

'All Def' is unlike any other comedy show or set because 'All Def' goes back to the essence of how urban comedy started. We give it a 'stoop appeal.' A stoop appeal is important for us because it's where pretty much all black comics started doing their standup: cracking jokes on the stoop, in the hood.

Of course, my whole theory of comedy is based in reality. The funniest stuff comes from real life.

I was never the class clown, and I've no idea where the comedy came from.

For me, comedy starts as a spew, a kind of explosion, and then you sculpt it from there, if at all. It comes out of a deeper, darker side. Maybe it comes from anger, because I'm outraged by cruel absurdities, the hypocrisy that exists everywhere, even within yourself, where it's hardest to see.

Have you seen the film Histoires D'Amérique? It's also a mixture of humor and monologue, and it shows how the Jewish humor comes from drama and tragedy.

America is where standup comedy was born. It's the standard. So you want to go and do your job where this is the mecca of what you do.

My theory is that comedy comes from little people.

All comedy does that. Every comedian I can think of - Larry David, Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, Chris Rock - that's where the best comedy comes from, from stereotypes.

I started getting really interested in comedy when I was in middle school.

I really don't know what makes a comedian. I think it's a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.

When I was in high school, I was doing all the plays. My drama teacher, Melody Duggan, was the one one who first made me do stand-up. She's the origin of the whole thing; it's all her. In high school in Denver, that was kind of the beginning of it all.

There's always a source for humor.

When did I start comedy? I came out of the womb and did 10 minutes.

I am a great believe that your humor is developed at a very early age and it doesn't ever change.

A man in the crowd asks: Hey Rodney, how'd you get started? Rodney: I was 12 years old, alone in my room, and I got started!

I think that came out of watching all those serious movies for all that time. If you watch a movie like Zero Hour, Sterling Hayden is pretty funny, and so are the guys in the cockpit.